Chronovisor

A French professor is lured into a world of untold histories as she embarks on an academic quest to solve the mystery of a “chronovisor“ – a camera-like machine invented by mysterious Benedictine monks that literally captures history. An intellectual film noir and “armchair thriller” in the mannerism of Jorge Luis Borges and Umberto Eco.

While researching the philosophy and neuroscience of memory, Béatrice Courte (Anne Laure Sellier) stumbles upon the story of a Benedictine monk who, in the 1950s, claimed to had witnessed the crucifixion of Christ using a machine that could visually capture and transmit any historical moment to a television screen. The story caused a scandal in the Vatican and beyond, and the academic becomes obsessed with this intricate phenomenon, putting to work her meticulous research skills to delve into the depths of hidden supernatural knowledge, beyond the established laws of nature, and jeopardizing her professional reputation in the process.

Told primarily through ephemeral texts – the visual-textual narrative is constructed from actual newspaper articles, scholarly journals and books – the film unfolds from Béatrice’s perspective, evoking the thrill of reading and the power of analog research in a rare, intriguing way. The compelling feature debut from Jack Auen and Kevin Walker of the Cosmic Salon collective is enveloped in the warmth and soft lighting of a 16mm camera, transforming New York libraries, videotapes and scholarly articles into fascinating portals for questioning historiography, supernatural beliefs and institutional repression that will tickle the imagination of even the most convinced agnostics.

As Béatrice’s quest is unfolding, Chronovisor transforms into something more than a display of an impossible invention and grandiose conspiracies, capturing the magic of stories that leave behind a gray, technocratic world devoid of imagination and narrative inventiveness, pointing to the porous boundary between fact and fiction, investigative zeal and unquenchable obsession. If we surrender to its strange, hypnotic rhythms, we will see that there are secrets and mysteries all around us, we just need to know where to look…